Forfeit
by Halcyon.Promise
Summary: After loss, how is love supposed to go on? How is it supposed to move on, when everywhere you look memory presses in? (Canon, following Eric's death.)


**A/N: TW for suicide &amp; depression. For those of you who have seen the movie you can imagine this scene happening with the factionless - I'm writing this per book canon though, and it's at the Dauntless compound. This is a set of prompts - one anon wanted more from the Forgiveness 'verse, and one anon gave me this quote. "Let the love tear us apart, I've found the cure for a broken heart." Also throwing in my oww, "How easy it was to capitalize on a person's own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life." This is perhaps, not quite where my anons would have liked this to go but this was always going to be, in my mind, how this 'verse came to a conclusion. Forgive me! Final note: Hat-tip to Spartacus dialogue here. I'm curious to see if you can find it! Let me know if you think you know what it is. **  
**You can find me over on tumblr under the username paradigmflaws. There's a direct link on my profile here! I'd love for you to drop by and say hello.  
NOTE: This follows Fortune, Forgiveness, Forsaken, &amp; Forbidden - in that order.  
**

* * *

I wish that the sound of the water below could numb me. I used to come here because it did. In a faction that never seemed to sleep, peace was a hard-fought bounty. I know that I will not find it now, though.

The two places in this compound that I had ever found peace are beyond me now. I will not go back to Eric's apartment. Four asked me if I wanted to - but to go up into the Pire, the glass walls overlooking the pit, it would have been torture. I think he understands why I didn't.

It would still look like _us_.

My things and his would overlap in a living space that had been untouched by tragedy. I know that it would not be real. His shirt might still be thrown over the back of the couch. If he hadn't picked them up from the night before the simulation, my underwear might still be shoved against the wall in the back corner.

I am not strong enough to chance seeing this. So I don't.

While the rest of Dauntless fights to reclaim itself - there is no blue-edged black _here_, not anymore - I have come to the only other place that I might find peace.

Getting away from the looks is my first motive. I cannot stand it. There is sympathy in some of them, but for the most part people cannot help but judge.

They do not understand how I can grieve. Eric did terrible things, they tell me.

I do not tell them that I know, but I do.

The weight of it is something that I have not escaped from since the very first day. I wanted to pound against his chest then, screaming and crying, I want to ask him still, 'why did you spare me?' I have lost my chance to do so.

No one understands that I fought to leave. Only Tris and Four are among the Dauntless here that can remember me from that day. The fact that I ran through the compound the same way they did, escaping the other Dauntless who were selected not to be under the simulation, that I was running from _Eric_. I know what he has done.

I know that it is terrible.

My heart doesn't seem to care. In the war between grief, guilt, recrimination and an encompassing anguish for everything, nothing seems to win. I cannot think straight anymore.

I came here hoping that the sound of the water beneath me would numb the heartbreak but I understand now. Nothing ever will.

I cannot escape this. What am I supposed to do?

It is worse since we have come back to Dauntless. In Candor I could walk unfamiliar halls and not find myself reminded at every corner. Here? Now? I cannot breathe with the weight of it all. Memory pushes at me, claws out of my brain. I feel like I should cry, but my eyes are dry.

Eric did terrible things, my mind echoes back at me. He does not deserve my tears.

But there was another Eric that Dauntless did not know. He was not a perfect man - but who among us is? I see Tris and the decisions she makes, and I worry. It is clear to all of us after Four's confession that he, too, is not perfect. Eric was not perfect, no. But he was mine.

I understand, now. It has been a slow thing, creeping into my mind in the days since Eric has been sentenced. I knew the instant it happened that I would not be the same. Nothing could, not since Eric knew about the simulation and did nothing. But after his death? The revelation is an even more pressing one now.

My knees don't shake as I look down at the black, churning water below. The rocks are wet with precipitation that it churns up.

My stomach doesn't drop out in anxiety.

All I know is that hollow ache in the region of my heart that has only compounded in the days since his death. The vice around my lungs has not eased. It is not easier to breathe. It is not easier to _be_.

Maybe this is inevitable. I will not let myself think about that, though, because if I do I know there are roads to go down that I will not come back from. But then - isn't that what my life is? It has been a series of steps, of decisions and choices, that I cannot ever come back from.

Not even the remains of my faction can understand it. I do not know if Dauntless has it in itself to forgive me my involvement, either.

I will not lie to them. I will not say that I did not love him. I did.

I do.

Oh, God, I want to cry out, I do. I still do.

I still do, and I am cold with the realization. I love Eric. I love the man that I knew him to be - and I will always despise his flaws, but I will never hate him. I realize that I will carry this with me through the rest of my life.

Can I live with this?

My hands tighten on the railing. I am cold, and I feel my heartbeat slow.  
No. I can't. I can do so much - I already have. I have said goodbye to the man that I loved. I fought against him when he did things that I felt were unredeemable. I have taken as much as I am able - but my heart is telling me that it is enough.

I cannot take any more than this.

It is clear now. I know what I have to do.

_Let go._

My eyes close as I fall. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, I am weightless. I can breathe.

I am in love, and I am loved. I am forgiven. I can be forgotten.

_I am free.  
_


End file.
